I was so lost
It all started in the summer of 1976. I was an 11 year old boy and I can really say that I was on the shy and timid side. As a child, I never got into trouble in school or at home and I didn’t have many friends for that matter. Looking back now, having those traits probably made me an easy target, but who can tell with child molesters.
My stepfather was my molester. It started that summer of 1976 when my family went to visit my aunt and uncle in Georgia for vacation as every year. But this year was different. While every one was still out and about, my step father approached me for the very first time. I was like a stone figure, not able to move or even talk. To this day, I have never been as terrorized as that moment. He began telling me how it was ok for boys to do this because he had with all his friends growing up. When it was over, I could not even speak and he could tell I was affected. He told me that it was ok for me to feel different, that it was natural and that I would be ok. He told me specifically that I was not to tell anyone because they would not understand. Embarrassed by the whole experience and not knowing what to do, I did what I was told… I did not say a word to any one and the rest of the vacation went on as usual.
When we got home, he approached me again about a week later, one afternoon when no one was home. Only this time he was very violent and angry. Afterwards he was as calm as anything, and he proceeded to tell me that if I told anyone of what had happen at home or in Georgia that nothing would happen to me… Instead he would kill my mother and my sister and that he would get away with it because he was older than me and no one would believe a kid anyway. He said that he would leave and I would have to live with the fact that I had killed my mother and sister. Therefore, it was my choice… and of course I choose to never say a word.
Soon after that conversation I really prayed to God. Oh Sure, I prayed to God before that but I prayed just kid stuff… This time was different, I had a true need. I was eleven years old and I prayed really hard with my whole heart asking God to please make my stepfather stop.
“Please make the police come and take him away. Something! Anything! Please God help me!”
I would pray every night but the abuse continued. Time passed, I prayed a little less, looking out my window at night to the heavens wondering if he heard me. “Do you care about me?… Are you mad at me?… Am I too dirty for you now?…” The more time passed, the less I prayed. I would ask, “Are you there? Why do you let this continue? Do You hate me?” Eventually, I stopped praying…
By the age of 15, I was a hard rock inside. No one could tell what I had and was continuing to go to through… No one, not even my mother, siblings, teachers, friends… I was able to hide it all like a World Champion.
During the summer of 1980, the sexual abuse stopped and the physical abuse started. At this point my stepfather just became angry at me all the time and would hit me for no reason at any time. I was a nervous wreck around him because I would never know when he would hit or throw something at me. He was just crazy at this point.
It was not until I was 17 on a Saturday that I just felt I had enough and I fought back. I was sweeping the garage and all of a sudden out of nowhere I felt the sting across my back. He had hit me with an extension cord! At that point, before I knew it I just turned around and attacked him. I punched him twice in the face as hard as I could. He never touched me again. But I was so mad at myself I could hardly stand it. The realization of ‘if I had only fought back years ago, none of what I had gone through would have happened’ hunted me daily. Soon after my graduation from High School, I joined the Army and left home.
As years passed, for some reason, I had blocked all the abuse out of my life and my mind. I had forgotten what had happened to me growing up as a child but it had taken a huge toll on me, I just did not see the effects. I was a mess. I got married, had a son, got out of the Army, went through a divorced and married again… all in 10 years. My mother and stepfather were still married and they used to pick up my son from school and watch him until we got out of work in the evening. Life went on as normal, until one evening I found out that my Stepfather had tried to target my eight year old son! That is when the memories and everything that happened to me came rushing back. It was 1993, I was 28 years old and it was the first time I’ve ever spoken about it.
The fact that I had put my son in danger was unbearable to me. I began a journey of depression and shame that would continue for years. I went to countless counselors and support groups for several years, in addition I took a the steady regimen of prescribed drugs to try to help me but I was so lost and so was another marriage.
But there was one constant through all of these years, I had no relationship with God. To me, he had abandoned me as child or was not real for that matter. I was just angry and hurt to no end.
Years went by and I continued to live this way. There was no hope just a never ending road of depression, bitterness and anger that found no end. It was not until 1999, when I was contacted by an old high school friend, Margie. We first met in 1980, when we were 15 years of age and I had not heard from her since 1981. Eighteen years later, I get an email from this woman saying how she had always remembered me and how much I had stayed on her mind all these years. Immediately, we began emailing each other, renewing our friendship and learning about what we had both been through in the past 18 years. We decided to meet and my heart felt feelings I never felt before in my life. I knew that instance that this woman was going to change my life and fulfill all that was missing, but how? Margie was a spiritual woman and she kept insisting that it was a God thing… God? There is no way! Could it be? How after all this time is life changing in such an amazing way? Maybe God was with me after all.
He was with me always...
Margie and her three children moved to Orlando and along with my two children we married on Sept. 30 2000.
Together we began to attend a church in Orlando with my sister and my mother. Still skeptical with the idea of God in my life, I went to church only because Margie wanted to go… but in the process I started to see God in a total different light. We moved to Clermont and there Margie found Celebration of Praise. We began attending and watching my wife as she experienced the love of God in a new higher level helped me be more conscious of His presence in our lives. God used her to bring the teachings to help me heal, let go of my past, forgive my abuser and let God’s love and majesty back in my heart and in my life. In 2006, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Since, the Lord has shown me that He was with me always… even through the storm of my abuse. He was with me through all of those years of depression and guilt. God showed me that it was He who brought Margie back in my life… And that He meant for us to be together.
Today God is every thing in my life. He has provided for us all of our needs. He has healed me spiritually and emotionally. I am no longer depressed and I am at peace and happy with my life. I trust in God completely. I am a better person because of His love in my life. God truly works in mysterious ways but for me, He knew just what he was doing. I praise Him daily and thank Him for his Love… for He has surely proven His love for me.
If you are or have been a victim of sexual and/or physical abuse, please do not stay silent. Tell someone what is going on if it is occurring and even if it is in your past, confide in someone you trust. Remaining silent is what the enemy wants you to do because he knows that silence will fester and destroy you from within.
But most importantly, seek out the Lord for guidance and for the strength to forgive those who have wronged and hurt you… And never forget that He is always with you.
Wayne Puckett ~ Florida, USA
He has healed me spiritually and emotionally.
1 Kings 19:11-12
“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the LORD told him. And as Elijah stood there, the LORD passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper.”
In His Grace 